


Chanticleer...?

by FrenchTwistResistance



Series: I’ve Always Been Crazy But It’s Kept Me from Going Insane [17]
Category: Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (TV 2018)
Genre: F/F, I just want caos to be a sitcom where hot middle-aged ladies kiss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-22
Updated: 2020-05-22
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:06:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24317020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrenchTwistResistance/pseuds/FrenchTwistResistance
Summary: Zelda attempts to reach out to Hilda.
Relationships: Hilda Spellman & Zelda Spellman, Hilda Spellman/Mary Wardwell | Madam Satan | Lilith, Hilda Spellman/Original Mary Wardwell
Series: I’ve Always Been Crazy But It’s Kept Me from Going Insane [17]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1597594
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	Chanticleer...?

“You’re not even going to give me a hint? Just a little clue?” Hilda says from the passenger seat of the Crown Vic. She’s not looking out the window. It’s all the same scenery she’s seen thousands of times before on the way to town. Of course Zelda’s side profile, which she is looking at, is the same side profile she’s seen thousands of times before, too.

“That’s the point of a surprise,” Zelda says. She flicks on the blinker, and they’re bypassing town.

The scenery’s just a little different now, although something she’s seen before just not as often. And the side profile’s just a little different now, too, although something she’s seen before just not as often. Zelda continues her thought:

“I just don’t know what’s going on with you lately. That ridiculous erotic novel. The inordinate amount of time you spend dicking around in the cellar or the solarium. All your furtive nonsense in Father’s study. Don’t think I didn’t notice that especially.” 

She pauses, apparently expecting a rebuttal, but Hilda doesn’t provide one. Hilda’s wondering what all Zelda’s seen in and out of that study—and in and out of the cellar and solarium besides. 

“And you can’t be bothered to help me with starting a religion from scratch and rebuilding our coven, which I would’ve thought would be well within your blasphemous wheelhouse.” 

She pauses again and looks over then. 

Their eyes meet, and Hilda registers the sadness there, the frustration, the exhaustion. She realizes that whatever this surprise is is just as much for Zelda herself as it is for her. Zelda’s been running herself ragged at the Academy. She kicks herself for not having been attuned to this previously. She kicks herself for being so wrapped up in herself so as to not recognize Zelda’s pain and confusion.

Sure, she’s got a lot of emotional shit wrapped up in returning to banging a demoness who had lied and obfuscated about her true identity for the formative parts of their relationship. But Zelda’s got a lot of emotional shit wrapped up in worshipping that same demoness. They should be communicating with each other and leaning on each other, not avoiding each other. She’s taken aback and a little embarrassed that Zelda—who usually takes her comfort in ritual and liturgy and tradition but apparently is trying to adapt, who is usually closed off and compartmentalized but is apparently trying to override her nature—is the one to attempt to bridge the gap between them.

Zelda’s eyes are on the road, and once again Hilda is looking at that side profile, so familiar but a little different.

“Anyway,” Zelda says, clearing her throat. “All things considered, I thought we could use a little distraction.”

Hilda looks out the window now. It’s lush green forest punctuated by intermittent dilapidated barns. In the distance perhaps a cranberry bog. She doesn’t look at Zelda as she says,

“Yes. A distraction.”

But a distraction is a distraction. What they really need is a conversation. Hilda bites her tongue at the thought and narrows her eyes, tries harder to spy a cranberry bog.

Zelda’s messing with the radio tuner. The fm sister station of their preferred am farm station—am always comes in fuzzy and indistinct in this car—is cutting in and out. It’s low frequency, near the bottom of the dial, so Zelda’s manipulating the toggle trying to find something that will come through. Most of the bottom-of-the-dial stations are Christian—lush old hymns with five-part harmony, heavily regionally accented preachers talking about the End Times, bizarre audio dramas with absurdly intricate plots. She lands on a bland baritone announcing call-in prayer requests.

“Liz of Scarsdale requests prayer for her brother-in-law who suffers from gout.”

Hilda’s been rummaging through the glove box of the Crown Vic. She shoves a cassette tape into the deck so she doesn’t have to hear all this.

It’s the Beaches soundtrack.

Hilda searches for cranberry bogs, and Bette Midler sadly croons about whether it will rain today, and Zelda drives.

xxx

Ten or so miles on a state highway, not a freeway but very well-maintained and smooth, easy nice driving. And then, after several gravel-road turns—bringing them farther and farther into a dense, wet wood—Zelda parks the Crown Vic in a mud-lot clearing that is not really a parking lot.

Maybe there have been some bogs on the way. Maybe there has been a lot on the way. Maybe there hasn’t been nearly enough on the way. Hilda is not as excited about the surprise as she is guilty about not having used this time alone together to its full extent.

But here they are, wherever they are.

Zelda wrenches the passenger door open and takes Hilda’s arm, guides her across the mud lot to a lean-to, where inside it’s all sand and shouting.

Zelda’s hand is at the small of her back, directing her to a spot at crumbling wooden railing that’s one side of the perimeter of some kind of fighting ring. Zelda disappears for a few minutes, and Hilda takes in the faces around her—expectant faces, murmuring to each other. There’s a few poultry hutches out back, slanted and in disrepair. Hilda also spies a latrine and a rusty, non-working oil rig and a tractor with a tire missing and a warped-roof single-wide. She sighs as it dawns on her what she’s in for this afternoon. It’s exactly the kind of setting she might’ve expected Lilith to drag her to back when she was still allegedly Mary and still dragging her places. 

Then they stand shoulder to shoulder, forearms propped on that railing, people pressed in on either side. 

“Why in all the realms would you think I’d want to go to a cockfight?” Hilda says. She thinks she knows: she’d enjoyed all those times Lilith had dragged her places, and she suspects Zelda’s still a little upset she’d found someone else so entertaining and exciting. She watches Zelda blink. Then Zelda says,

“They were all seized by the county on code violations. Destined for euthanasia anyway. Why not have a little fun with it?”

There are roosters at opposite corners of the ring, held by dirty men in dirty overalls. Hilda’s stomach flips. She doesn’t believe Zelda’s “ethical cockfighting” cover story for a second.

The crowd is roiling now, a slow boil.

Hilda wants to say something, put up some objection. But Zelda says,

“I’ve got our money on Rock-a-Doodle.” She points to a scraggly scrap of a thing trying to puff himself up. “His spurs aren’t very big, but he’s got a lot of charisma.”

Hilda swallows. She feels so trapped—it’s hot and dusty and close and sweaty. Zelda drifts away to the corner to conference with someone. 

And then there’s a hand on her shoulder. She turns trepidatiously.

It’s Snake Eyes, proprietor of the off-the-books-sports-betting joint she frequents when she’s in a certain mood.

“Spellman,” he says. “Guess it was just a matter of time before you showed up here to clean up.” He’s smiling, jovial. His hands are now in the pockets of his Members Only windbreaker jacket, and he’s rocking onto the balls of his feet. “Playing the odds. Playing both sides. Smart. Nothing but respect for you and your old lady.” He winks and then his eyes cut meaningfully across the sandpit. Hilda follows the gaze to find Mary Wardwell across the way.

Mary’s in pleated slacks and a sloppy ponytail, and she’s looking toward the rooster who is not Rock-a-Doodle with eager eyes, a wad of cash clenched in her fist. She shivers as she accepts that Lilith had been right about Mary’s having a dark side. She wants to stare for a long time or maybe even go over and talk to her or summon Lilith to get her opinion on this. No time for any of that: She still has to deal with Snake Eyes and his impeccable memory—she’s sure he’d seen them together just the one time with those goons from Saratoga—and Zelda will be back any moment. She says finally,

“We’re here separately, actually. We’ve had a sort of falling out.”

“Oh! Sorry to hear it, li’l darlin’. If I run into her again I won’t mention you’re here. You’re a better customer, so my loyalty’s to you.” He winks again. But that comment sparks curiosity. Hilda says,

“Is that right? How good of a customer is… my former ‘old lady’, then?” He leans in, and she can smell gun oil and Beech-Nut chewing tobacco and Old Spice on him. It reminds her of a boyfriend she had in the early ‘60s. She can’t recall his name but he had also been an avid gambler. Was that her type, then, she thinks? Weirdos and gamblers? She shakes herself out of it to listen to his reply:

“I don’t see a lot of her. Comes in every few weeks, maybe. Not real reliable about paying debts but real reliable about getting into them. A little flighty, but you know that better than me I reckon.”

“Hmm I reckon,” Hilda says. They shrug at each other. He says,

“You got your money on Rock-a-Doodle, don’t you?”

“Obviously,” she says.

He smiles, tips his ancient greasy USMC Vietnam Veteran ball cap, and ambles away just as Zelda is ambling back to her spot next to her at the railing. Zelda says,

“Was that Snake Eyes? Do you still frequent his trashy two-bit illegal underground shithole?”

“Those in glass houses ought not throw stones, sister,” Hilda says, gesturing toward the sandpit.

Zelda rolls her eyes.

They’re leaning on the railing again and watching as the dirty men release the dirty roosters to begin to fight dirtily in the dirt. Hilda finds herself not paying attention, her mind wandering, her eyes wandering over to Mary, who is up on her toes, squinting, straining to see into the ring.

“The facilities appear to be very questionable, but I’m going to chance it,” Hilda says.

Zelda’s not paying attention to her, is completely focused on the birds pecking at each other, hums off-handedly as an answer.

Hilda pieces her way through the crowd, can finally breathe as she’s past the confines of the lean-to. She paces a few yards behind the latrine with her thoughts spiraling, just far enough away from the structure not to have to smell it but just close enough to be shielded from view by it.

Hilda hadn’t consciously wanted to summon Lilith, but here she is anyway. She supposes she’s been thinking of her enough that it’s accidentally occurred or maybe she’d voiced it unknowingly. Regardless, Lilith’s standing there in the ambient glow of the rising half moon, maybe five feet in front of her, glistening in a deep scarlet silk robe and very obviously nothing else, smirking amid the overgrown weeds.

Hilda blinks. Maybe it’s a mirage. But it’s not.

Lilith’s still really actually there with a hand on her hip, décolletage red, eyes questioning and sultry.

“Why aren't you wearing any clothes?” Hilda says, her throat scratchy and dry.

Lilith makes a show of scanning her surroundings, and then her eyes fix on Hilda. She says,

“The last time you summoned me you had exactly one thing in mind. I assumed this time would be more of the same. But something tells me I was wrong.”

They look at each other, observe each other. Lilith suddenly laughs and then shimmers out of Hilda’s reality. She shimmers back in—now in hickory stripe overalls.

They look at each other and observe each other again.

“I can’t fault you for adjusting to the environment. You’ve done a good job of it. But I’d be remiss if I didn’t tell you I didn’t strictly summon you here,” Hilda says.

Lilith frowns. But then her face changes, brightens. She says,

“And I’d be remiss if I didn’t tell you I don’t believe in accidents. Or coincidences for that matter.”

Lilith takes three striding steps, and her hot supernatural hand is on Hilda’s forearm, hot supernatural breath on Hilda’s face. 

Lilith closes the rest of the distance between them, snakes a hand around Hilda’s waist. Hilda intuitively leans into her. She nestles into Lilith’s neck in spite of herself. Lilith smells like metal and sulfur and fire and nothing—just how Hilda likes it, no memories of past lovers just the now and the eternal cosmic void.

“I concur,” Hilda breathes against Lilith’s projected skin. 

They’re locked in an embrace, kissing with a lot of tongue and teeth and hands wandering under overall bibs and beneath blouses when an “ahem” jars them out of it.

Mary Wardwell is at the back corner of the latrine, face scrunched.

“Hkhello,” Lilith says.

“Oh save it, Online Latvian Girlfriend,” Mary says.

The three of them are exchanging glances, and then there’s Zelda over Mary’s shoulder confusedly and concernedly saying:

“Excuse me, what?”


End file.
